Madame Chiang, 105, Chinese Leader's Widow, Dies

By SETH FAISON

Published: October 24, 2003

Correction Appended

Madame Chiang Kai-shek, a pivotal player in one of the 20th century's great epics -- the struggle for control of post-imperial China waged between the Nationalists and the Communists during the Japanese invasion and the violent aftermath of World War II -- died on Thursday in New York City, the Foreign Ministry of Taiwan reported early Friday. She was 105 years old.

Madame Chiang, a dazzling and imperious politician, wielded immense influence in Nationalist China, but she and her husband were eventually forced by the Communist victory into exile in Taiwan, where she presided as the grand dame of Nationalist politics for many years. After Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975, Madame Chiang retreated to New York City, where she lived out her last quarter-century.

Madame Chiang was the most famous member of one of modern China's most remarkable families, the Soongs, who dominated Chinese politics and finance in the first half of the century. Yet in China it was her American background and lifestyle that distinguished Soong Mei-ling, her maiden name.

For many Americans, Madame Chiang's finest moment came in 1943, when she barnstormed the United States in search of support for the Nationalist cause against Japan, winning donations from countless Americans who were mesmerized by her passion, determination and striking good looks. Her address to a joint meeting of Congress electrified Washington, winning billions of dollars in aid.

Madame Chiang helped craft American policy toward China during the war years, running the Nationalist Government's propaganda operation and emerging as its most important diplomat. Yet she was also deeply involved in the endless maneuvering of her husband, who served uneasily at the helm of several shifting alliances with Chinese warords vying for control of what was then a badly fractured nation.

A devout Christian, Madame Chiang spoke fluent English tintged with the Southern accent she acquired as a school girl in Georgia, and presented a civilized and humane image of a courageous China battling a Japanese invasion and Communist subversion. Yet historians have documented the murderous path that Chiang Kai-shek led in his efforts to win, then keep, and ultimately lose power. It also became clear in later years that the Chiang family had pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid intended for the war.

Madame Chiang had a notoriously tempestuous relationship with her husband, and then with his son by a previous marriage, Chiang Ching-kuo, who became Taiwan's leader after Chiang Kai-shek's death. Madame Chiang had no children.

Her skill as a politician, alternately charming and vicious, made her a formidable presence. She made a play for Taiwan's leadership after Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988, even though she was 90 and living in New York at the time.

Although she suffered numerous ailments, including breast cancer, Madame Chiang eventually outlived all her contemporary rivals. She was said to credit her religious faith for her good health.

Soong Mei-ling's rise to power began when she married Chiang Kai-shek in an opulent ceremony in Shanghai in 1927, bringing together China's star military man with one of the nation's most illustrious families.

Although Madame Chiang developed a stellar image with the American public, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other leaders became disillusioned with her and her husband's despotic and corrupt practices. Eleanor Roosevelt was shocked at Madame Chiang's answer when asked at a dinner at the White House how the Chinese government would handle a strike by coal miners. Madame Chiang silently drew a sharp fingernail across her neck.

''She can talk beautifully about democracy,'' Mrs. Roosevelt said later. ''But she does not know how to live democracy.''

By the end of the war, the loyalty of Nationalist officials melted away as the government grew corrupt and fiscally traitorous,

During the 1950's, Madame Chiang and her husband blamed the United States for the Nationalist loss of China, and continued to campaign for help from Washington to retake the mainland. Although that hope eventually faded, American support for Taiwan remained strong for years, delaying Washington's recognition of Beijing as the capital of China until 1979, three decades after the Communists had seized power.

By then, Madame Chiang had moved to New York, where she lived in an apartment on Gracie Square in Manhattan. In March 1999, as she turned 101, hard of hearing but still quick-witted, she told visitors that she read the Bible and The New York Times every day.

The Chiang-Soong wedding took place in Shanghai on Dec. 1, 1927. A small Christian ceremony was held at the Soong mansion on Seymour Road, followed by a political ceremony at the Majestic Hotel, beneath a portrait of Sun Yat-sen.

Madame Chiang became a true political partner to her husband, traveling with him, advising him on military and political matters, turning her charm on allies and foes alike. Chiang spoke almost no English, though his wife taught him to call her ''darling,'' and she served as his interpreter, often interspersing her own views.

During World War II, Madame Chiang emerged as China's most important ambassador, frequently charming American visitors like Wendell Wilkie, the Republican politician, who came to China in 1942 after losing a presidential campaign against Roosevelt in 1940.

Madame Chiang made a splash in Washington after the war. She spoke forcefully and passionately to Congress, winning a roaring ovation. She then traveled across the country, appearing at Madison Square Garden and at the Hollywood Bowl.

The Nationalists received considerable American aid, but as John Service, a longtime Foreign Service officer in China, warned in a memorandum about General Chiang: ''He has achieved and maintained his position in China by his supreme skill in balancing man against man and group against group, and his adroitness as a military politician rather than as a military commander, and by reliance on a gangster secret police.''

General Chiang resigned as president of Nationalist China in January 1949 and fled to Taiwan that May, taking with him a national art collection that was kept in crates in Taiwan for years as the Chiangs clung to the ever-diminishing hope that they would some day take it back to Beijing.

In the United States, the Chiangs set up what would become one of the most sophisticated lobbying efforts ever in Washington, learning how to distribute millions of dollars indirectly through law firms and public relations companies. The operation continues today.

Madame Chiang made several trips to the United States in the 1950's to oppose efforts by the People's Republic of China to win a seat at the United Nations. Only in 1971 did the United Nations allow the government of the world's most populous country to be represented, a prelude to President Nixon's trip to Beijing in 1972.

Madame Chiang lived out her final years in New York, with a pack of black-suited bodyguards who cleared the lobby of her Gracie Square apartment building every time she entered or left. She returned to Congress for one last appearance in 1995.

Correction: November 17, 2003, Monday An obituary of Mme. Chiang Kai-shek on Oct. 25 and in some late editions on Oct. 24 referred imprecisely to her attempt to influence political control in Taiwan in 1988, after the death of her stepson, Chiang Ching-kuo, who had been president as well as chairman of the ruling Nationalist Party. Mme. Chiang tried unsuccessfully to block his successor as president, Lee Teng-hui, from succeeding him as chairman; she did not seek office for herself, nor was she eligible to do so.